Before the Morning Comes
by brenli
Summary: [[The Last Witch Hunter AU]] Caught up in a war older than themselves - a grumpy Dolan and a guilt-ridden Witch.
1. Teen Witch in the Bar

_Foreword: The following is a The Last Witch Hunter AU piece. I do feel it should be noted, this project as a whole was created to be a sort of joint project between myself, Jael Randell (who the readership will likely know as the cowriter for Chronicles of the Fallen's second installment, Layers), and HaloRecoil. There will likely feel like there are… not necessarily huge missing parts, but like there are skips ahead to different parts of the overarching plot, as I will only be posting the pieces I myself have written. Familiarity with the storyline of The Last Witch Hunter is, therefore, highly recommended. That said, there are going to be some deviations from said plot. It feels moreso like a situation where one must know the rules before breaking them._

 _Also, while this has its roots as an Angel Sanctuary gone The Last Witch Hunter AU, this piece features Nemaelle Mudou, OC for my CotF series, Azreal, HaloRecoil's OC for her Coming of the Seraph series, and Zephyrel, OC for Jael Randell's Eve of the Earth series._

* * *

 **Before the Morning Comes  
** _Teen Witch in the Bar  
_ By: Brenli

"You're sure I can't get you anything but water?"

Nema couldn't blame the bartender for asking, her dark eyes haunting and sweet, like the welcome warmth of a pitch-black bedroom. She had been there since the bar opened at 6, and it was coming up on the witching hour. All she'd had was water, sitting slumped slightly in the smallest corner booth.

"Drop of Cheer?"

She blinked a bit at the name of the potion and shrank into herself, tugging on the thumb holes of her purposely torn, ebony long-sleeved shirt. "No, thank you..."

The bartender left, though not without a smile on her red-painted lips that reminded her of sympathy.

Nema had a lot of difficulty accepting that anyone, even a stranger, would give something like sympathy to her. It had been a long and lonely journey, full of dark nights, midnight trains, dirty benches, dumpster diving, pitch-black thoughts. She had deserved all of that.

For the hundredth time that night, scarlet eyes ringed in thick eyeliner and equally-stark black eyeshadow scanned over the crowd. Beautiful girls in their boho-chic best, sipping potions that glittered and glowed in a literal rainbow of colors. She had to look away.

Witches. Comfortable, happy, magical people. If she'd grown up in this city, with people like these, would she be like them? Or was there some... unspoken distinction, between witches like these and... witches like her?

Bad witches.

Witches who hurt people.

A finger uncommonly pale traced rings around the top of her glass of water as she recalled the line of black cars, of laying delicate lilies on the casket before it was lowered, of feeling guilty...

A line of sparks began to follow the path of her finger, and it wasn't like the gentle, glowing glitter that ringed the potions in the hands of girls as beautiful as the daylight. They were harsh and rang sharp, like a midnight train hitting the brakes too hard in some vain attempt to avoid an utter wreck.

Nema's lips were the darkest of reds and pursed into a hurting frown, but still she kept tracing that circle, staring at the grating ring of unhappy, aggravated, even painful sparks.

"Too hard."

For all her makeup, dark as pitch, her lashes remained as moonlight pale as her skin, her hair. They fluttered as she looked up at the bartender.

With one hand, she snapped fingers that reminded her of coffee mixed with creamer – like how he liked to drink it – and the edgy ambience of the music immediately halted. It was only then when Nema realized she'd sat there, toying with her glass of water while the hours slipped by, all the way until closing time. The evening of hiding in warmth was over; she would have the spend the rest of her time exposed to the dark and the cold.

But the bartender only held out her hand. "May I?"

Nema shrugged. She wasn't used to talking to people, anymore...

The bartender's finger traced a ring around the glass of water, and the sparks were soft and delicate as the dust from a butterfly's wing. "Gently. See?"

Her instinct was to say that it had nothing to do with pressure and everything to do with her not being like the beautiful person who'd been gracious enough to let her loiter inside all evening... but, for however many stained things she was, she wasn't rude. Nema traced her finger around the glass, more gently this time... sharp sparks, still. But this time, interspersed graceful tendrils that spilled from her finger like a glittering fog, following the shape of the glass and pooling on the table.

"Better." The bartender said with the soft glee of a teacher encouraging an unsure student. "A little truly goes a long way in these things."

"Magic things."

"Yes." She plunked a small shot glass onto the table, and it looked like sunlight in the spring, yellow and soft and welcoming. "Drop of Cheer; you need it."

Nema's dark-blood lips became an 'o' and her pale hands waved at the drink. "I don't have any money...!"

"It's on the house."

"I really can't...!"

"You're not in the habit of accepting kindness from a stranger." The bartender's red lips curled into a smile, again. "I understand."

But her understanding only made Nema feel worse. "You're closing. I should get out of your way." She didn't wait for a response, getting out of the little corner booth and hurrying for the stairs that would take her up and away from the bar that had been her haven.

"Two blocks up 9th street from here."

Nema paused.

"They won't charge you anything to take one of their cots for the night. There's a soup kitchen there, too."

She looked over her shoulder, feeling the heat of shame burn her pale face bright red. "That obvious, huh?"

"You're not the first witch who's sort of... taken to her broomstick, if you get what I mean. You won't be the last, either. But for whatever reason you're flying away, you deserve to be safe and warm."

"Not this witch."

"Especially this witch. How old are you? 15? That's no age to be out on the streets."

"I'm 16." She couldn't help it; for all her need to keep all the beautiful witches away from her twisted self, she at least wanted her age guessed right.

"Spoken like a true teenager." The bartender laughed, and the sound, even though tired, was like a hug sorely needed but never asked for.

Even as Nema smiled, tears began to line her eyes.

"Come, come. Take the Drop. Wasted cheer is such a tragedy."

But she only shook her head. "No, I can't."

"Suit yourself. Be safe, out there." The bartender fixed the sloppy, deep purple knot she'd tied her hair into. "'An ye harm none, do what ye will' and all that."

A common farewell meant to give peace, only gave a witch like Nema pain. "... And what if I have harmed one?" Such a confession was unprompted, but she had wrestled with the question with every mile she'd put between herself and her tiny town...

The bartender was quiet, and Nema felt the weight of her dark-eyed stare. Not with the heaviness of judgement, or even apprehension. It was the welcome weight of dark blankets settling over one's head, blotting out the sun for comfort's sake. "We have all made our mistakes."

But Nema had a hard time imagining this woman making mistakes. "Undoable ones are, I think, in a league of their own."

"I hurt the man that I love."

Something split in two within her, at once wanting to rail against the claim and wanting to cling to it. She sniffed back the conflict and said tentatively, brokenly, "... Me too."

The bartender began crossing to her, and Nema didn't know what to make of it until she heard the snap of her fingers and the scrape of wooden chair legs moving across the floor. The chair received her with a creak, and it was only then when Nema realized she'd fallen into weeping.

"I didn't mean to...!"

"I believe you." She spoke gently, the words a balm to pain held tightly across state lines.

"I was just so... angry! Angry that he'd choose her, that he picked Nanako of all the girls to play with. He said that he adored me and then he chose her...!" She hiccuped on a sob, just to see the bartender's head beginning to tilt in confusion. "He wasn't... very... exclusive, before me. Mitsuki lasted three months before he started asking about... opening things up."

Black eyes briefly widened, and it was a face that seemed so strange compared the calm she was used to seeing on this bartender's features. "Ah. Sorry, times like this I remember how old I am."

Nema gave her a bitter, snorting sound. "Not that old."

"Older than I look."

She shook her head. "I tried... because I loved him, and it was who he was. We don't... cage the people we love, right? We don't... force them to be some way."

The bartender looked down at the washcloth in her hands, and for a moment she seemed... stricken. "We try not to."

Nema nodded, finding herself clinging to the reassurance of a stranger. "And I tried... but I couldn't; I can't! I'm too selfish, and he... he chose _her_ ; he chose the girl who's always hated me, I don't...!" She dragged in a ragged breath. "I went back and forth giving him permission; in the end I let him have one night but it... It woke up this _anger_ in me. And I shouldn't have been, because I let him do it, but I was angry he wanted it in the first place; I was angry that I didn't feel like enough...! I wanted him all to myself, I...!"

The bartender gently offered a short glass of something, a potion that was silver and periwinkle swirling like a pastel galaxy. "A Soothing Serum."

This time, Nema accepted the drink, though only because verbalizing the thoughts that plagued her had sent her spiraling so hard within her own head. She wondered if she could ruin herself the way she'd ruined him... "I chased him... somewhere in his head. I'd find him in bed with other girls; I'd shoo him out, I... attacked a lot of those girls he'd had before me. Attacked Nanako." She paused, and the last confession dripped out on words too heavy for tears – or maybe that was the potion working. She wasn't sure. "Attacked Mitsuki." Her dark-blood lip quivered. "He never woke up again."

"How many people have you told this to?"

"None but my parents..."

"They threw you out?"

Did Nema imagine the hint of indignation? "... No. I beat them to that point; they were talking about psych evaluations."

It was the bartender's turn to wonder if she'd imagined the words. "They didn't believe you. They're not witches?"

Nema shrugged helplessly. "It's not something I was raised with... I only learned on the road."

"A family, two lines of witches without magic... except for you."

"Lucky me." The sarcasm was so bitter, Nema had to take another sip of the potion.

The bartender didn't reply to the hurting comment. "Do yourself a favor and tell no one else. Even in the witching community, Dream Walkers get a bad reputation."

"I'm a Dream Walker?"

"I like to think that I can spot one well. Birds of a feather."

When Nema's teary eyes widened, the bartender shushed her with a finger to her red lips. She sniffled and rotated her now-empty glass in her pale hands, murmuring, "Did you hurt yours the same way?"

Suddenly the bartender went about turning chairs upside down upon tables. "I'd rather not share, right now." The clacking of wood on wood punctuated her sentences.

"Sorry..." Nema stood, allowing the stranger to place her chair on the nearest table. "Let me help you close up."

"You can help me close by drinking that Drop of Cheer."

Though her smudged makeup made her eyes burn, the red irises rolled in a big circle before taking the sunshine shot glass and downing it. "How do you make one of these, anyway...?"

"It's a relatively simple recipe," The bartender spoke distractedly, but paused to softly suggest, "Learning would not be a bad thing for you. You have all this magic in you but you don't know how to direct it. Control is important for a witch." She heard the clacking of more wood on wood, and looked up to see that the young, pale girl all in black had begun to help close up the bar.

"Maybe you could teach me?"

The bartender had to laugh. "Oh, I don't know how great of a teacher I would be...!"

"Please? There's no one else I can ask. And if you teach me enough drinks, you can put me to work in the bar."

"A teenage bartender."

"Just for potions, no alcohol...!"

"I may have made your Drop of Cheer too cheery..."

"Not too cheery, just..."

"Just?"

"I don't want to end up hurting anyone else."

The bartender paused in her work, watching the girl set up the last chair. Their eyes met in an honest gaze, and at last she spoke. "Potions only."

"Potions only."

"And until you've learned well enough, you can help me with the cleaning. It's not glamorous work."

"It's work."

The bartender looked up and down at her. "... Then... consider yourself hired." She held out her hand, and it looked that much darker holding the moonlight-pale hand of the girl. "First thing's first; my name is Zephyrel. Welcome to my bar."

"Nemaelle." Her smile was small, still a bit hurt, but hopeful. "Thank you for giving me a chance."


	2. Delivering the Message

**Before the Morning Comes**

 _Delivering the Message_

By: Brenli

Nema certainly felt out of place, here, standing in the elevator in her well-worn ankle boots, distressed charcoal gray jeans, tattered fishnet and tightly-cinched black corset. There was a man in the elevator with her, dressed in what felt like a Wall Street Banker's best. The only similarity between them? They were both carrying briefcases. She assumed his wasn't literally full of cash, though, banker or not.

That man had gotten off at the 65th floor, leaving Nema to her thoughts for the remainder of the journey up. Going over Zephyr's message to her, over and over again... a Soul Reaper. And she'd thought being a Dream Walker was as legendary as it got.

A Necromancer... and the very likely possibility that the Witch Queen would arise, once more.

Stories about her were perhaps the scariest of all. All those lives, ended... never in all of history had another witch come close to that level of utter decimation.

For the remainder of the elevator ride, Nema made attempts to understand where her mentor and friend was coming from. As rare and as dangerous as a Soul Reaper must be, how much of a threat could one be if no one had heard of one in so long? How was the revival of the Witch Queen somehow the lesser evil, in this case...?

Even if the Witch Queen was Zephyr's sister. As much as Nema was sure there were years upon years of history that she didn't know about...

She needed to make sense of this. She'd run away once; she wasn't going to do it again. "Oh...!" Nema had been so caught in her thoughts that she had ignored the jolt of the elevator halting, and the doors were so silent she hadn't realized they'd opened until they were already mostly closed. She jammed the briefcase of cash into the gap and stumbled into the small foyer, and that was when a different kind of apprehension briefly struck her.

It was easy to stand up against the Witch Hunter himself when she was in home territory, but as the cleanliness and the cream walls and Persian rug made clear, she was far from home. The foyer was all sorts of colors, though many of them gentle ones, and she was stark black and white.

But it was too late to let any type of fear take over her, now. Zephyr needed her help, and she intended to do everything asked of her.

Except for the running away, thing.

She stepped up to the front door and pushed on the buzzer. Waited.

Heard a lot of stomping... Did Uriel hate unannounced company? Tough.

Then quiet. She assumed he was looking through the little peep hole at her.

"What the fuck?"

Nema blinked a bit at that. The voice was a bit muffled and the tones weren't at all like how she remembered Uriel's – sharper, faster, a slight roughness that suggested frequent yelling – but she'd definitely heard a 'what the fuck?' from the other side of the door.

And then it got worse. "Uriel, there's some fucking mime at your door!"

A... a _what?_ Before she could stop herself, her finger stabbed at the buzzer and held it down. "Not sure I'm a very great mime!"

"What the fuck do you want? You selling goth scout cookies?"

Whoever this guy was _wished_ she was selling 'goth scout cookies'! "I need to speak to Uriel immediately."

The guy didn't hold down the buzzer and he certainly didn't need to. His voice was loud enough. "Uriel, is this the chick you keep sending texts to while you're talking to me?"

She sighed and pushed the buzzer. "I suspect that's probably my friend Zephyrel."

"The booty call?"

The _what?_ "Just let me in!"

"Uriel are you going through a ring of friends? Fucking classy!"

"I can still _hear_ you, you know!"

This time he held down the buzzer, enabling her to hear the tones of a second man. He sounded much more like how she remembered Uriel, though she couldn't make out what he was saying with this meaner voice overpowering the speaker. "And I can hear you, so stop _screeching_ into the fucking buzzer!"

This _guy...!_ "So let me in!"

"You're fucking rude, you know that?"

Oh, _she_ was rude? "This is urgent!"

"That's funny, so is what I'm here for!"

"Not as urgent as what I'm here for!"

"And how'd you know that? You read minds?"

He was speaking with sarcasm but it still struck her silent. She had gone into a mind once; if she had her way she'd never do it, again.

Finally, freaking _finally_ , the guy's attitude calmed. If gruff mumbling could be considered calm. "Come back tomorrow."

"I'm not coming back tomorrow!"

"Yeah? You gonna fucking sleep in the foyer?"

"I've slept in worse places!"

"Then sleep in those places!" Again she caught Uriel's voice in the background of the buzzer, coming closer.

Nema figured this was her only real shot, with this... this _guy_ ruining everything. "It's urgent and I _mean_ it! Zephyr's in trouble!"

"Tough!" A scuffling sound. "Wha-"

The door opened. Uriel was just as she expected.

The guy wasn't. A dark suit, not neatly ironed, and a scar the came up from the neckline and curled upon his cheek. Some kind of burn. Red hair, a bit messy. None of these things were what threw her.

It was the white, clerical collar.

She couldn't help herself. "Boy, Catholicism sure has gone downhill, hasn't it?" Though she knew he wasn't of any Catholic order, not exactly. His sleeves where rolled up to the elbow, and she could see the brand on the inside of his forearm. The Axe and Cross. Uriel's Dolan.

Nema suspected Uriel was trying to hide a little touch of amusement, but this guy wasn't hiding any of his anger. "What the _fuck_ did you just say?" He planted that arm across the entryway, blocking her path. In her haste to enter, she'd nearly clotheslined herself on that branded arm.

She gave him an exasperated look and began gesturing, wagging a pale finger at him, pointing at her silently blabbing mouth, giving him an overly animated shrug and a shake of her head.

His eyes, green and sharp, blinked widely at her. "Ha fucking _ha._ "

"Michael, let her in."

His glare turned toward the Hunter, but he did as told, dropping his arm. "I liked the other chick more; she wasn't as annoying."

He was off before Nema could say anything in response, and she had to mentally shake herself in order to focus. "I wouldn't have come here if it wasn't an emergency."

"I believe you." Uriel said, and though he wasn't speaking quietly, his voice seemed soft compared to the yelling of his Dolan. "What happened to Zephyr?"

The concern was palpable... stronger than Nema would have initially assumed. But now wasn't the time for questions, and she spoke as she moved down the hall. "She's trying to go after a Soul Reaper."

A notable pause. "Why?"

"I wish that I knew." Nema sighed, seeing Michael at a table, gathering up pictures. "So you two have been in the know about the Necromancer?"

A few pictures crumpled in Michael's hands. "How the...?"

She blinked and tapped a picture of the altar flanked in black candles and cat skulls before sliding it toward him. "I feel like it's kinda obvious...?"

"You figured that out in two seconds?"

"... Yes?" Nema looked over her shoulder at Uriel with a confused brow.

"He's new at this." Uriel said flatly.

Her crimson eyes shifted to Michael and back to Uriel, holding up the picture she'd tapped before the Dolan could grab it. "Zephyr found the Necromancer who's been making all of these. Or, the Necromancer found her."

"Where are they?" Uriel's question was instantaneous.

She handed the picture to Michael and set the briefcase on the cleared table, pulled the ziploc bag from within it, and held it out to him. "You need to eat this."

"Whoa whoa whoa! No!" Michael suddenly snatched the bagged cherry from Nema's hand.

"Give that back!" She dove for the bag, but he moved around the table.

"No!" He snapped as the pale witch chased him around the table's edge. "You fucking witch!"

"Wow! Well-spotted!"

"This is probably hexed!"

"It's not!"

"It's just a shit-covered cherry in a fucking baggie?"

"It's a _message!_ And it's not for you, it's for him!"

"Of course it's for _him!_ But I don't trust it!"

"Enough." Uriel reached out when Michael made his third lap around the table, tugging the bag from his hand.

"Don't it eat, Uriel. For all you know it'll put you in a coma."

"It will take more than a cherry for a hex that complex."

"Something you _ought_ to already know, Dolan." Nema said with a moody, dark-lipped pout. "If Zephyr wanted to put him in a coma then she would have used an apple."

"Not inspiring much trust, witch." Michael growled.

Nema slapped her pale hand upon the table. "I get the feeling you're not in the habit of trusting witches in the _first_ place!"

"For good fucking reason!"

"Oh for-" Nema pointed at him, and it was only after the fact that she realized how bratty she looked. "Can he please not be here?"

"No, I'm staying." He held up the crooked pile of pictures. "I was involved with investigating this long before you were; I have a right to stay."

Nema had to fight the urge to whine.

"I'm about to send the both of you out." Uriel's tone held a tired kind of finality as he took the sludge-smeared cherry from the bag.

Nema was quick about pulling out a chair. "You should sit for this. I don't know what her exact message to you is so I don't know how this will affect you..."

"I'm warning you, witch," Michael grumbled as Uriel sat, "This harms him in any way, I will personally end you."

"Then do it!" She snapped in response, red eyes sharp and daring him to slay her. "I'll gladly die at the hands of the Axe and Cross if it's for the woman who saved me!"

"Michael." Uriel leveled his Dolan with a serious look. "Trust me."

He was clearly bursting with more protests, his mouth opening and closing, but he finally crossed his arms over his chest with a quiet, "Feh..."

It was about as calm as Uriel could expect Michael to be, and the pale witch who worked for Zephyr seemed to calm, too, resting a hand on the briefcase she'd brought. "Please... hurry. She may have told you things about this whole mess that she hasn't told me."

"We'll get her back." Uriel didn't need to ask to be aware the girl needed reassuring... Though in the act of saying it, he knew he was reassuring himself, too.

He didn't take long to consider it, instead dropping the cherry into his mouth, shutting his eyes, and swallowing.


	3. Say Witch Hunter!

**Before the Morning Comes  
** _Say "Witch Hunter!"  
_ By: Brenli

"He's in a coma."

"He's not in a coma."

"He has to be!"

"Except he's not!"

"Then why is this taking so long? Huh?"

Nema gestured helplessly at the ill-fittingly rude 'priest.' "I'm sure if it's _anything_ like the message Zephyr had for me, it's rather long! She has a lot she has to go over, with him!"

"Fuck this." The red-haired Dolan suddenly stood, leaving Nema sitting at the table with Uriel.

She was more than content to sit there in silence until his voice drifted out from somewhere deeper in the penthouse.

"Red or white?"

Nema paused before cautiously asking, "Red or white what?"

"Mice eyes. What the fuck do you think I'm asking you? What the Hell wine do you want?"

Her chair scraped across the floor as she stood and moved in the direction of his voice. "Planning on poisoning it?"

"I ought to."

"The irony is too real!" Despite his aggression, she had to laugh. "Girl who deals in concoctions, killed by one prepared by a priest!"

"Fuckin' – The Axe and Cross is an _entirely_ different thing! All right?"

Once she found him, Nema found herself in a kitchen, and the very moody 'priest' was scraping around at something that smelled delicious in a pan. "You're cooking?"

"I'm hungry." He grumbled. "Red or white?"

Again, she ignored his question. "Some witches like to joke that cooking is the normal folk's magic."

"Don't make me snort into this fucking food."

"You're taking ingredients and making something new out of them. In the most basic sense, it's really not all that different."

"I'm not here to find common ground, thanks!" Michael snapped and harshly thrust the pan about a few times.

"Of course you're not." Nema ground out flatly. "Is it a Dolan thing? The blatant and immediate hatred for witches?"

"If I hated you, you'd be dead already."

Her dark lips suddenly grinned. "Oh, so you like me, then?"

Michael glared at her from over his shoulder, the curl of scar tissue on his cheek pulling taut as he sneered. "Don't flatter yourself! The line between dislike and hate is very, very thin, and I already told you what I'd do if it turns out Uriel doesn't wake up from this!"

As quickly as she teased him, she grew tired and defensive. "Do you _honestly_ think that if I wanted to seriously incapacitate the great Witch Hunter, this is how I'd do it? By going right into the lion's den and putting myself at the mercy of a clerical sentinel?"

He scoffed in response. "People sacrifice themselves for their causes all the time."

"What's my cause supposed to be, then? Wiping out the Hunter, to what end?"

With that, Michael flipped off the heat and tossed the pan onto an unused burner with almost violent force. "You can't possibly fucking need me to spell it out for you! What else would a witch want the Witch Hunter gone, for? So they _can't be hunted!_ So they can do whatever terrible things they want to!"

When he whirled on her, stalked toward her, Nema fought against the instinct to back away. She meant what she said – she was in the lion's den. There was no backing out, not when Zephyr needed her. Not when she intended to do anything to right this situation, even when Zephyr told her to run. "Witches don't all do terrible things, and if you're going to be this man's Dolan, you're going to need to accept that! Salem ended _hundreds_ of years ago so you're a bit late for burnings at the stake!"

"It doesn't matter whether they don't, it matters that they _can!_ Never in my life have I heard of a witch just living their life as it happens to them; they always have to _manipulate_ everything! Like playing God, but who gave any of you that right?"

"We didn't ask for what we have." Nema was firm in her reply. She got the feeling that was the only way to deal with the way he lashed out like a whip against her skin.

"And no one asked you to use it, but you do, anyway! And well-meaning or not, you fucking _burn_ people!"

"Yeah?" Like the moment she'd first heard him through the door, she couldn't help herself. "Who did it to you?"

At first she'd thought that his eyes were the blue-green of the sea, but right now they just seemed green. Very green, and very mean. Suddenly he was dumping some of the food he'd made into a bowl, stabbing a fork into it, thrusting it at her. "Eat your fucking dinner. You're welcome."

Nema took hold of the bowl, and for all the bitterness in her mouth, the food smelled almost divine. "You're supposed to eat stir fry with chopsticks."

"Take it up with Uriel when he wakes up." His lips were a firm line across his face. " _If_ he wakes up."

This guy was _exhausting_ in his stubbornness... "He'll wake up, okay? Even though you've made it very clear that nothing I say is going to convince you." She didn't wait for a reply, hoped that he _wouldn't_ reply, as she moved back to the table.

"Red or w-"

"I really don't care, ugh!" At this point she'd drink some damn everclear and hope it knocked her out.

He reappeared a moment later with a chilled bottle of white wine, and he poured the both of them very, very full glasses. "White wine for a literally white girl."

"Oh, you're adorable." She muttered and immediately drained the glass.

Michael blinked. "And you don't know how to fucking dine. You're supposed to drink it with the damn meal!"

"Stir fry eaten with a fork, paired with wine, and you're offended about etiquette? Really?"

"You're not even drunk and you're a fucking mess." He poured her more wine.

Nema rolled her crimson eyes. "Keep pouring like that and I'll be drunk _and_ a mess."

Michael plopped down into his chair with a loudness Nema expected was so common of him, he wasn't aware of how noisy he was. "Just shut up and eat."

So they did, in a silence that was loud and uncomfortable. Nema waited for the moment the 'priest' would suddenly snap. When the Dolan would decide enough was enough, that she'd surely put Uriel in a coma and she needed to be arrested and ultimately, dragged away to where all the other convicted witches went. Two more glasses later – between his own glasses, draining the bottle – she was starting to get very, very annoyed. "Wow, this is taking longer than I figured it would."

The Dolan had gone back to spreading out the pictures of the necromancy altars, and he seemed distracted as he replied. "Maybe you should jump in there and tell your bestie to hurry the fuck up."

"That's not how this works."

"Then how does it work?"

Nema gestured helplessly. "It just...! Doesn't! It's not like Wa-" She stumbled on her words. "It's not how messages work, okay? The Hunter isn't even... I don't know. Present, right now."

"He's having an out of body experience?"

She nodded. "That's the only way this can even work. Trying to give him a message while he's still, you know, present... that would be Dream Walking."

If nothing else, at least Nema didn't have to explain all the negative connotations of Dream Walking. She gathered, by the way that he recoiled, that he was well aware of how dangerous Dream Walkers were. "So she's not a Dream Walker?"

As if she was going to tell a member of the Axe and Cross what Zephyr was and wasn't. "Maybe you can ask her, the next time you see her."

"What, you mean when we're trying to pry her out of the grasp of a Necromancer?"

Something about that made a laugh bubble out of her mouth. "Yeah, you know, just casual conversation for a casual day."

"That's a pretty fucked up version of 'casual.'"

"Not like this is any better. Look at us. Goth scout mime, a priest looking at creepy blasphemous pictures, and this guy who's tapped out by a cherry. This is _super_ normal and average, right?"

A snort left Michael, but it was an amused one, at least. "You make him sound like a passed-out guy at a frat party. Had too many of those moonshine-soaked cherries."

"Well honestly, that's what he may as well be, right now."

The Dolan didn't respond right away, and when Nema looked up from her empty wine glass to him... he was smiling. And then immediately covering his mouth with a picture and coughing. "What a sad, sorry sap he is. You might draw all over him with your gothy fucking lipstick."

"My gothy lipstick is great!" Nema couldn't help retorting.

"Fucking please. Bet your kiss marks look like oil smears."

"Excuse you, Father Dolan; I'll have you know all my makeup is enchanted. Smudge proof, water proof, basically everything proof!"

Michael coughed again, almost disguising a laugh. "Fuck, I'm sure that's the first magical fucking thing all you lady witches learn, isn't it?"

She shrugged... trying not to think about how her first time using magic had been much more complex. Much more deadly. "I'm sure it depends on the witch. Different things... come naturally to different witches."

That was when he slid a picture of an altar toward her. "Think this came naturally to the Necromancer?"

Nema stared at the picture and sighed, tilting her head. "I honestly don't know. My gut wants to say yes... just because the Necromancer is soulless, so I feel like, in theory, that means they mostly only do things that are minimal effort for them? But this is..." Her face felt hot, a mixture of wine and a strange kind of shame at her helplessness. "This is kind of... above me. I'm somewhat new to all this... witching."

"How can you be new to witching? Aren't you born a witch?"

"Both sides of my family don't actively have any magic. I don't think they're even aware of any history with the craft." She knew they weren't; why else would they turn to talk of psych evaluations when she'd confessed her crime to them?

"So... what? They found out one day that you were, and sent you off to witching school?"

"Oh, so this is all some twisted up Harry Potter story to you, now?" The joke distracted her from sour memories.

"I'm trying to figure you out."

The reply was sincere, and maybe it was the wine, but she didn't sense any cruelty coming off of him. "I don't see the point in that. We lead very different lives and believe very different things, and when this is all over, I'll slip on out, just as easily as I slipped in."

That uncomfortable silence crept back in, and they both tried to pretend they were fine with it, Nema tapping on her phone, Michael going back to the endless analyzing of the altar pictures. "... Not that easily."

Nema jumped, though his voice had been quiet and preoccupied. "What?"

"You didn't slip in that easily."

"Well who's fault was that?"

He smiled as he kept his eyes locked on the pictures, letting his silence be his admission, and that was when he heard the click. His gaze shot up.

"A memento for the time a priest called me a mime." Nema said, her eyes shifting from the phone's screen, to his face, and back again. Checking to see if her phone's camera was responsible for how the once-green eyes looking undoubtedly blue.

Michael rolled those eyes and leaned back in his chair. "You gonna take any mementos for the time we fucking sat here eating dinner next to this passed-out chump like it was no big thing?"

And maybe it was the wine... "Let's do it."

The Dolan stilled. "What?"

"Let's take a picture with the Hunter!" She was already on her feet.

His laugh was loud and surprised. "Fuck, do you know how much this guy hates getting his picture taken?"

"Then now's our only chance!" She stood behind Uriel's chair, getting the camera on her phone ready.

Michael stood. "Whoa, hey, there's a fucking _reason_ he hates it; he doesn't want his face traced over time!"

But Nema wasn't listening. "Say 'Witch Hunter'!"

"Hey, stop!" Michael leapt into view behind her as the camera snapped the shot.

"Witch Hunter."

The phone slipped from Nema's pale hands and clattered to the floor as she suddenly screamed and flailed backward, feeling her body stumble into the Dolan's with enough force to make him stumble in kind, though at least he was able to catch her, steady her.

Uriel's head turned to look over his shoulder. "Enjoying yourselves?"

"... He suggested it."

" _What?_ " Michael snapped. "It was a fucking joke! I didn't expect you to do it!"

"You still suggested it!"

"Jokes aren't suggestions! What the Hell kind of twisted fucking logic-"

"I _really_ don't have the time for this...!" Uriel stood and strode off. "I have to stop her. Now."

Michael had expected the pale witch to protest, but instead she stood after grabbing her phone. "I'm coming with you."

Uriel whirled on her. "No you're not. You're young and not powerful enough."

"More powerful than you think!"

"He's right." Michael insisted, following the Hunter. "You told me yourself; you're new to all of this. Lay low. We'll handle this."

The Witch Hunter's mind briefly blanked at that. "We? No. You're not getting involved."

"Yes I am."

"No. You're not."

"You're the one who can't even immediately identify a Necromancer's altar!" Nema cried defensively. "Why should you get to go with him?"

"I'm his Dolan!" Michael snapped.

" _Neither of you are going!_ " In all his time with Michael as his Dolan, sure, there had been a number of moments the young man had tested his patience. Somehow, adding in this little witch made everything that much worse... Or was it just his nerves, utterly frayed in the face of what had become of him and Zephyr? "And delete that picture."

The Hunter moved off toward his vault, and as the footfalls faded, Nema firmly made her declaration. "I'm going."

Michael frowned, but when he spoke, it was only a mirror of her own words. "I'm going."

Some agreement was reached, though Nema couldn't explain how it was that she knew so. She could only nod and hurry to pick up her thin briefcase of cash. "And I'm keeping the picture."


End file.
